Chris Bohjalian - Before You Know Kindness

“It means you’re hiding behind it, sweetheart. It’s your defense not to talk to me. Of course, I don’t know everything. Okay? But your father and I both believe that something is troubling you, and it has to do with the accident.”

Willow sighed, an almost impossibly long exhalation for a person so small. “Everyone is already in so much trouble, aren’t they? I feel awful for Dad. Don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And…”

“Yes?” She was sure now that her daughter was going to add that she felt bad for Charlotte, too.

“And I just wish people didn’t make such a big deal about what other people eat.” Willow turned from the window and stared at her with eyes that were fretful and intense. “We talk about food all the time: What’s good for you, what’s bad for you. White meat, red meat. Uncle Spencer’s tofu. Did you get your five fruits and vegetables? You better have. Don’t eat that honey bun: You’ll get a heart attack someday if you do.”

It took Sara a moment to register both that her daughter hadn’t continued with what she presumed was the natural connection-that she was worried about her cousin as well as her dad-and that the sixth-grader was mixing in her mind two very separate issues about food. “It’s one thing to try to eat right,” she answered carefully. “You know, to eat healthy foods-a little bit each day from all the food groups on that pyramid. It’s a different thing entirely to choose to become a vegetarian. There are people in this world who eat meat and still eat nothing but healthy foods. Likewise, there are vegetarians who eat terribly. They live on mayonnaise and cheese. Uncle Spencer isn’t a vegetarian because he believes it’s healthier. It’s because he loves animals. I’m pretty sure-”

“I know the difference, Mom. Really. All I meant is that sometimes it seems like all we care about is eating. It’s like all we think about is food.”

If Willow were a little older, Sara thought she would have said to the child, And sex. And, maybe, what our parents thought of us. Those are, alas, the big three. But she restrained herself.

“I mean,” Willow added, “this summer Grandmother was figuring out the dinner menu at nine in the morning. Can you believe it? Charlotte and I were still in our nightgowns, and she was asking us what we wanted to eat at the end of the day.”

“And that’s yet another issue: That’s your grandmother trying to be in complete control. What I want to discuss now is-”

“The accident.”

“Yes. Why don’t you want to talk about it?”

“Would you want to talk about it if you were me? I don’t even want to think about it. I just want it to go away.”

“I think it would help you to talk about it. I think you’ll forget it sooner if you don’t keep whatever’s troubling you to yourself.”

For a long moment the girl was quiet, staring down into the rainbow-colored pellets of wheat in her bowl. Then: “Even the accident was about food: Uncle Spencer’s vegetable garden and Dad’s deer hunting. Uncle Spencer just had to have a big plot of vegetables and Dad just had to start hunting. You know what I wish?”

“What?”

“I wish we could all just take one big, chewable pill in the morning-and all the pills in the world had exactly the same flavor-and that was our food for the day. Everything we needed. Not just all the vitamins and stuff: everything. All the… the…”

“The calories.”

“Yes, all the calories and all the bulk-or whatever-we need to feel full.”

She smiled. “Oh, you don’t mean that. Imagine a world without hot fudge sundaes. Or pizza. Or even crunchy, vaguely fruit-flavored cereal. I think you’d miss them.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Outside a gust of wind shook the trees, and the branches of the hydrangea-its conical bouquets of flowers salmon colored now-scratched against the bay window in the next room. When Willow had been a little girl, that tree had frightened her: When the flowers and leaves were gone the branches looked like talons.

Once the breeze had fallen away and the house had grown quiet again, Willow sat back in her chair and murmured, “You know what else?”

“What?”

“I never thought he was going to die.”

Sara nodded. “Uncle Spencer.”

“Uh-huh,” her daughter said. “Even when I found him. That night it never crossed my mind he might die. When I got there, there really wasn’t all that much blood. Maybe it would have looked worse if it hadn’t been so dark, but the only light was the spotlight outside the garage. I remember running past Charlotte-I just ran the way she was facing-and there he was on the ground. Charlotte was screaming. His eyes were open, but I don’t think he knew I was there. His skin was wet. Sweat, maybe. But maybe it was also dew from the garden leaves and the lupine. He was right at the edge of the garden. Remember? His legs were twisted, sort of. One was under the other-I don’t remember which-and his feet were in the snow peas. I wondered if they were broken-his legs, I mean-and I even thought for a second that maybe he’d been shot in a leg. But then I realized all the blood was up around his shirt. And his shirt collar. There was a big, growing spot by his shoulder. And then Dad was there. I heard people running, and then I felt Dad’s hands on me-I knew it was Dad even before I turned around-and he was pulling me aside. At first I thought it was just because he didn’t want me to see Uncle Spencer. But then I understood it was also because he wanted to see how badly Uncle Spencer was shot. Where he was shot, I guess.”

Sara reached across the edge of the table and wiped away a rebellious lock of Willow’s hair that had come loose from a small butterfly clip and was falling across the girl’s eyes. It wasn’t that the hair was offending Sara: She simply wanted an excuse to touch her daughter.

“And then you were there,” Willow continued.

“I ran outside with your father.”

“Where was Patrick?”

“Patrick?”

“You know,” she said, her voice brightening slightly at the chance to tease her mother. “Your son? My baby brother?”

“I knew who you meant, silly girl. I was just wondering why you were thinking of him.”

“Where was he?”

“I put him in the crib. He was in your father’s and my room.”

“Was he crying?”

“Probably.”

“And you left him?”

“Of course I did. My first reaction was that something terrible had happened. And while I guess I understood on some level that you were safe because you’d dropped off the diapers only a second or two earlier, I couldn’t be sure. And so I was scared to death. Petrified. Does that really surprise you?”

“Well…”

“Sweetheart-”

“I just didn’t realize you would leave Patrick, I guess.”

She slid her fingers down from Willow’s forehead to the girl’s hands, which looked impossibly soft and small to her now. Beautiful hands. A young ballerina’s hands. She lifted them both to her lips and kissed them, pressing the slender digits against her face. She had the vague sense that there was something more that she wanted to ask Willow. Likewise, she had the feeling that this wasn’t necessarily the direction even her daughter had anticipated the conversation would take: It was similar to the unexpected connection the child had made about food a few minutes ago. But she couldn’t bring herself to try to steer their discussion back to its original course, in part because it was possible that Willow had just revealed precisely what she was feeling that was causing her such angst-the altogether understandable belief that she was second fiddle to the new baby, an impression that must have grown more pronounced in New Hampshire in the days after the accident when it was all she and John could do to keep from having nervous breakdowns themselves-and in part because she was afraid if she tried to speak more than a dozen words she’d start to cry.